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WING COMMANDER: THE MOVIE

Directed by Chris Roberts

Starring Freddie Prinze Jr., Matthew Lillard

20th Century Fox

Just from looking at the self-important title of Wing Commander: The Movie, it is obvious that there is a difference between the movie and the interactive computer game of the same name. In fact, the movie hardly measures up to the video game. The successful five-part series, with its latest 1997 release Prophesy, for years has captivated players with stunning visuals, satisfying action and suspenseful story lines. Yet, Wing Commander, lacks all the characteristics that made the game famous. However, you do not need to be familiar with the game to notice the shortcomings of the movie.

To begin with, the plot is formulaic and lacks any real suspense. Taking place in the outer reaches of space, Wing Commander begins in the midst of a war raging between the Earth-centered Confederation and the hostile cat-race of the Kilrathi. The Kilrathi, having captured a Confederation navigation unit, are on their way to besiege Earth. Rookie pilot Christopher Blair is entrusted to prevent the impending Kilrathi assault. Blair's heritage as a pilgrim of the first settlers of space endowed with mysterious superhuman navigation powers is particularly overplayed and seems to be cashing in on the anticipation for the new Star Wars prequel due out this spring. Wing Commander earns the reputation of a pathetic wannabe by attempting to mimic the Force made famous by Star Wars. The movie loses even more credibility through a contrived and overstated romance between Blair and his commanding officer Angel Devereaux, played by Saffron Burrows of Circle of Friends fame.

Poster-boy Freddie Prinze, Jr. stars as the untried hero Christopher Blair who is launched into the forefront as the hero of the Confederation. Prinze, sporting a tiresomely defiant grin throughout the whole movie, brings little life to the character of Blair. He is teamed up with an equally shallow Matthew Lillard as best friend Maniac, a hotshot wild man and sidekick who does little to advance the plot. In fact, because of a trite dialogue, there is relatively little character development from the entire cast. Aside from Blair, the other characters may just as just as well have cameo roles, as they do little to influence the course of the movie.

The special effects do little to rescue the movie from the monotony of the story line. The Kilrathi make a disappointingly infrequent appearance. Even when they do show up, they appear as silly rubbery monsters, not the fearsome feline-race implied by the Confederation's dread. Similarly, the scarce combat sequences are unspectacular. In fact, the combat usually consists of the heroes shooting at tiny targets on a screen, then flying back to base. There is little of the close-up dog fighting that could have brought at least some suspense to the action scenes.

Despite the failure of movies modeled after successful video games--most notably Super Mario Brothers and Mortal Kombat--Hollywood still hasn't realized that video games do not work on the big screen. This phenomenon is even more applicable to Wing Commander, a computer game that already bills itself as an interactive movie. There is absolutely no need to make the transition between computer screen and theater screen. As soon as the interactive element is gone, there is little to capture the interest of the audience. Wing Commander: The Movie crashes and burns.